9.27.2012

Tormented & Adorable...

or endless woe of cuteness? I'm uncertain, 
but for some reason these curtains remind me of my labor and delivery of my first born...roll with me here...I commend you ladies who go natural, but wouldn't choose it for myself. Unfortunately that's what happened when I was in labor for 24+ hours and my epidural ran out and the anesthesiologist was too busy to refill my bag o' bliss. (Like I said, I commend you ladies). But to make a very long day short. I was given the best gift of my life that day as well. And he was SO BEAUTIFUL.

Curtains? I testify that I will NEVER. EVER. paint another curtain again. I'm pretty sure anyways, because that's what I said after I had my first born, and along came #2, so who knows really.


But the results my friend???
Please keep in mind that it's COMPLETELY decoration-less at the moment...
are very VERY lovely, and about $5.70 a panel.

***
I purchased two flat white sheets at Walmart for $4.95 each. As well as some cheapo rods, acrylic crafts paint, scotch tape and brushes. (you probably have a lot of this on hand so it will even out to much cheaper a panel, but I just moved and got rid of SO MANY THINGS).

I'm lazy and you'll see a lot of that laziness play out in this post, but I'm not even shy of sharing because it all evened out by the time I put my tormented work into it, but I'll get to THAT part in a minute.
There was a fold up the middle of the sheet that looked pretty even to me, I didn't measure to find out, I just cut the curtains in half...

 Hem the newly cut edges...

Tell your husband to take his homework elsewhere because this project is going colossal...
But say it in a nice "I love you to the moon and back-and keep it up!" kind of way :)

You know the top of a flat sheet looks like this... (but less blurry)?

Fold them to the back and sew your curtain loop...

Now measure the length of your curtain, and divide it by the amount of stripes you want. (This includes counting the white stripes that I don't paint). Now take a pencil and measure down the edges and mark a line where each strip will end (down both edges so that your lines line up).
-nope...didn't even snip off the loose end strings yet...

Ok, now if you'll notice below, (that I SHOULD have ironed the sheet, but surely did not) some stripes are thicker than others. Why? Because I placed the tape inside where the white stripes will be and outside where I'm going to be painting the black stripes. Does that make sense? Think about it for a minute and mull it over, because I had to too. The tape can't be in the way of painting the black stripes.

This is a picture before. But I SHOULD have taken a before/before picture because I JUST painted this wall grey!


Here's the after!
(Sorry I took the pictures with zero flash and zero tripod).


Some last minute tips. Painting is the hard part. That's the part I didn't take pictures of because I was too busy cursing in the wind and pulling out lumps of hair. The paint seeps through the fabric, so whatever you're painting on is going to be painted as well. And you can't move it around to paint another section because it might get on your white stripe. You CAN NOT get a drop of black on the white stripe part because it will NOT remove. I will let you be the best judge of how to go about this. I hung them from the middle of the ceiling and had ZERO backdrop to hold it still. Imagine it. Cringe. And let it go like I did. I love them. I love the results. The End.

UPDATE: We loved our curtains (and our finally decorated living room since our move) that we took a clan-pic right in front! I even covered the gold lined fireplace (which I'll post about soon)...

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6 comments:

'T' said...

like!

Unknown said...

I have a question for you. I have roman shades in my bedroom that are burgundy. They don't exactly match my pale blue and white I've got going on. I want to attempt painting them white. Any tips? I figure I'm going to replace them, so I might as well risk ruining them first. Heck of a lot cheaper than new curtains or shades.

Your panels look amazing, by the way!

Unknown said...

looks awesome, love stripes! but seems like way too much work! wouldnt it be easier to sew white and black sheets together in stripes instead? I dunno...

Laura & Tyson said...

Yours look really good! I just painted stripes on curtains in my son's room (the day b4 he was born): http://tysonandlaura.blogspot.com/2012/10/colts-room.html

A few tricks I did was when I taped off the stripes - I went past where the curtain ended which also taped it down onto the dropcloth.

I mixed a fabric medium to my paint which makes it not as crunchy and you can seal it by ironing which allows you to wash it in the future (which I probably won't ever do because I'm assuming the red would still bleed).

I also used a small white roller which made the process much faster.

Anonymous said...

So so cute! I've seen this and i've had it pinned for a while but this just made me want to finally make it. Great job. And love your family picture, so adorable!

Chad & Bonny Day said...

Love them! I've been thinking about doing this for a while, yours turned out so great, I might just have to give it a try!

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